Mobile offline support

Totara Mobile offers offline support in the Totara Mobile app, allowing users to download entire courses or individual activities for offline access. It ensures that users can continue learning without an internet connection, and supports shared devices by retaining downloaded content across login sessions.

With Totara Mobile offline support:

• Users can download an entire course or select specific activities for offline access

• Downloaded courses and activities are stored on the device and are accessible when the user is offline

• Users can view and manage their downloaded content from the Downloads tab within the app

• When a user logs out of the app, the downloaded content remains on the device and is accessible when they log in again

• Users are alerted when there is not enough storage available to download content

• Users can remove the downloaded content

• The progress and completion data synchronises when the user gets back online, or they trigger the manual sync process

Activities and resources supported offline

Totara Mobile currently offers offline support for the following activities and resources:

• SCORM

• Label

• Page

• Certificate

  Users can download certificates only if they have already received them. The app will not generate the certificate while offline, even if the relevant completion criteria have been met.

• File:

To ensure compatibility and a consistent user experience across the platform, the following file types are currently supported on the mobile app:

Courses containing offline-supported activities

Courses with activities that can be downloaded and completed offline are identified with a download icon (). This icon can be found within the course tile on the mobile app’s home page or the Find learning page.

The course tile will also identify how many activities within the course are downloadable.

Downloading course content

1. Tap the download icon ( ) on the course details page.

2. The Download summary page appears, indicating:

   • The number of downloadable activities

   • Total file size of the download

   • List of the activities to download

     The summary will only show the first three activities which can be downloaded; if there are more than three activities you can tap on More activities to view the remaining downloadable activities within that course.

3. To download the activities, tap the Download activities button on the course summary to begin the download of the activities. Selecting Cancel will return you to the previous screen and no activities will be downloaded.

When is device storage checked?

Storage availability is checked on your device by Totara Mobile at two stages:

• Before the download starts:

  • When a user taps Download activities, the app checks whether there is enough space available to download the content

  • If there is not enough space available, the user will see an error message, e.g.:

    ‘You’re running low on storage, and your course downloads have been paused. Please free up space to continue downloading.’

• During the download process:

  • If device storage fills up mid-download (e.g. due to other app activity), the app pauses downloads and displays the same message.

Accessing downloaded content

To access downloaded activities when offline through the Totara mobile app:

Mobile offline syncing

Learners can set the app to automatically or manually sync their offline completions across multiple courses and activities when they are online, so that they can ensure all of their completions are updated:

• All offline completions, multiple courses and activities are updated when syncing

• A success message confirms when syncing is complete

• If syncing fails, users receive an error message with retry options

• When there is a sync conflict, the system should use the last recorded user progress timestamp to update the completion status

Sync setting preferences

Learners can set their preferences for syncing offline completions from the Totara Mobile app. To set the Syncing options, follow these steps:

1. Open the Totara Mobile app.

2. Tap the profile icon ().

3. Tap Syncing options.

4. Set your preferred Auto sync option:

   • On: When Auto sync is enabled, the user’s offline course progress and data will automatically sync in the background whenever an internet connection is available

   • Off: If Auto sync is disabled, the user’s offline data will not sync automatically, and they will have to start the syncing manually

Manual sync

To manually sync your offline completions with downloaded content when Auto sync is disabled, follow these steps:

1. Ensure your mobile device is online.

2. The app will detect your online connection. Within a course with downloaded content, a 'Sync pending' message will appear, allowing users to choose to Sync now or Later.

3. Tap Sync now to begin syncing your offline progress, and a 'Syncing offline progress' message will appear. You can dismiss the message by tapping the X icon.

4. An animated sync status icon ( ) will display in the tab bar next to the Downloads tab ( ).

5. Once the syncing is completed, the sync status icon will disappear and a ‘Sync completed’ message appears. Your offline activity progress will now be updated.

You can view the progress of your syncing and waiting activities by tapping on the Downloads tab. You can choose to cancel any syncing in progress by selecting Cancel sync on the Downloads tab.

If an error occurs during syncing, for example due to network issues, a 'Sync failed' message will be displayed, with the options to either cancel or retry. If you choose to cancel you can reattempt the sync at a later time.

Sync over Wi-Fi only

This setting controls whether offline course data can sync using mobile data or only when a Wi-Fi connection is available.

• Off: Offline course data will sync using both Wi-Fi and mobile data.

• On: When this setting is turned on, syncing will only occur when the user is connected to Wi-Fi. Syncing will pause when they are on mobile data, helping them avoid unexpected data usage.

If Auto sync is disabled and Sync over Wi-Fi only is enabled, a prompt appears when a user attempts to sync without a Wi-Fi connection. The prompt provides the following options:

• Go to options: Open the Sync options to enable syncing over mobile data

• Try again: Retry syncing once a Wi-Fi connection is available

• Cancel: Close the prompt without syncing

This prompt helps users stay informed about their current sync settings and manage data usage when a Wi-Fi connection is not available.

Sync setting behaviour

Offline course content updates

When users download a course (either fully, or partially by selecting individual offline-supported activities), the app does not sync or update previously downloaded content automatically if changes are later made to the course on the Totara site.

Users must manually remove and redownload offline content to reflect any updates or changes to courses and supported activities.

Examples of course changes not reflected automatically include:

• Updates to the content of an existing activity

• Adding new activities to the course

• Removing existing activities or resources

To ensure a user has the latest version of the course, users must:

1. Sync any current offline progress or completions.

2. Remove the downloaded course or the impacted activities from their offline content.

3. Redownload the course or specific activities to retrieve the updated version.

Alternatively, if new downloadable activities are added after a user has already downloaded the course, users can:

1. Go to the Activities tab to see the new activities.

2. Download the new activities individually for offline access.

Removing downloaded content from device

Learners are able to remove any downloaded courses from their device to free up storage when offline access is no longer required.

To remove downloaded courses from a device, follow these steps:

1. From the downloaded course, select the downloaded icon ( ) which will open a pop-up.

   1. If there are still some activities to be downloaded, the Download course option is enabled; otherwise it will be greyed out.

   2. If there is no downloaded content to be removed, the Remove download option will be greyed out.

2. Tap Remove download and tap the button to in themenu confirmation message to confirm the removal.

3. If any progress from the course content has not been synced, the user will receive a warning when attempting to remove the course. This reminder will inform the user that their progress is not yet synced, and by removing the download, any offline progress will be lost. The user can then Confirm to proceed with the removal, or Cancel the removal of the download.

A user can also long press on a course from the Downloads page, which then gives the user the option to select one or more courses to delete.